


Asymptote

by inoru_no_hoshi



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: 5 Things, AU, Disability, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoru_no_hoshi/pseuds/inoru_no_hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>In analytic geometry, an asymptote of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as they tend to infinity.</em> Five glimpses into universes where Hikaru and Touya never met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asymptote

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently this requires tissue warnings? Making the chat sob at me is totally a mark of quality though. >_>
> 
> Written for the prompt _five AUs in which hikaru and akira never met_ from the [Let's Five! consolidation post](http://hikarunogo.dreamwidth.org/36688.html) on [hikarunogo](http://hikarunogo.dreamwidth.org).
> 
> Beta by [hostilecrayon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hostilecrayon/pseuds/hostilecrayon). ♥

Being short on yen was a never-ending problem for a pre-teen with branching out interests in the world; luckily for Hikaru, he had relatives for whom he could do little favours and gain a little cash.

For some reason, _jii-san_ was delighted when Hikaru would rake the yard - whether it needed it or not, even though he _did_ half-ass it most of the time - and then just talk for a while. Hikaru didn't get it - adults were _weird_. But hey, it always got him at least 500 yen.

He never even thought of looking in _jii-san_ 's attic for stuff to sell.

*

He was seven when, contemplating a tricky _kifu_ Ogata-sensei had shown him, he forgot to pay attention to the traffic before crossing the road.

Akira never noticed the car that hit him.

*

Hikaru never thought of football being a dangerous thing to want to play, not consciously, until the day he got piled on by half the other team in a pick-up game, all older and bigger than him, and he wanted to yell at them that it wasn't _American_ football they were playing, but couldn't seem to breathe.

He never quite remembered the ambulance ride, and definitely didn't remember the emergency surgery needed to get his ribs back in place and re-inflate his lungs, but he remembered the long healing process, and the seemingly endless physio for his broken body.

_Jii-san_ taught him Go, playing endless games over and over until Hikaru, out of boredom, actually started studying it, and _thinking_ about how he played. It became a good distraction from the way he couldn't walk for very long anymore, and the way his left hand didn't quite work right, and how people always looked at him with pity.

It was his escape - nothing more, nothing less. Competition made him leery, now.

*

As a child, Akira was fascinated by his father, and his father's friends, when they played Go. It was patterns and numbers and endless reforming; a battle played out on a board that seemed too small, at first glance, to have so many options.

School-aged, he startled his teachers by having a grasp of maths and probability completely off the charts. He always wanted more: more numbers, more patterns, more ways to make, break, and rebuild, stronger and better, until Go became the hobby, sometimes forgotten for months, and _this_ was his dream.

He never became a Go pro, but he did become a world-renowned mathematician.

*

Hikaru stumbled into the Go salon almost five minutes after he'd expected to be there; shoelaces unexpectedly coming untied were _evil_. As were skinned knees - he was limping and his mom would probably worry about the bloodstains on his sock, and Sai's worried fluttering wasn't helping anything at all.

"Ne, _obaa-san_ , do you have any band-aids?" he asked, smiling a little crookedly at the lady behind the counter. He _really_ wanted to play Go - or, well, _Sai_ did - but he needed to tend his knee first.

She peered over the counter at him, then bent down and pulled a first aid kit from under it. "That's an impressive scrape," she commented, pulling a big band-aid and anti-bacterial spray out of the kit, then dampening a cloth with some water. "What happened?"

Hikaru grimaced. "My shoe came untied and I tripped. Thank you," he added, taking the items she offered him.

"You're welcome. Be more careful!"

"I will!" he agreed, and limped over to a chair. 

By the time he'd finished cleaning his knee and had the band-aid on, Sai had calmed down and the old men weren't really paying attention to him. He didn't notice the boy in the back until he was trying to argue that he wanted to play the most awesome player in the salon.

He didn't really believe that the kid was that awesome, and anyway he was already playing someone else. So he - Sai - played one of the old geezers instead.

He didn't get a chance to play the kid.


End file.
